Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 126)
MONDAY 17 OCTOBER 2005
MR NEIL
KINGHAN, MR
RICHARD MCCARTHY,
MR ROB
SMITH AND
MR PETER
UNWIN
Q120 Chair: Are you confident that
you will not be repeating the mistakes of the Home Office?
Mr Unwin: I certainly hope we
will not be going back on those.
Q121 Alison Seabeck: On CPA, how
many local authorities, based on the evidence and scores from
the last CPA, would, if set against the new criteria, be expected
to drop a grade?
Mr Kinghan: I do not know the
answer to that question but nor, I think, does the Audit Commission.
Q122 Alison Seabeck: That was my
next question really. Having discussed it with the Audit Commission,
are there any exemplifications?
Mr Kinghan: We know that this
is a harder test and that therefore it is possible that local
authorities will drop a grade. The point of the exercise has been
to make the test harder. The Audit Commission consulted, as I
am sure you know, on their proposals and went through a big exercise
and announced only on Friday what they propose to go ahead with.
I do not know whether there is any exemplification of how many
would drop a band. I think my hope is that authorities will continue
to improve and so that will not be an issue.
Q123 Alison Seabeck: Are you expecting
those which achieve the higher standard to receive further freedoms
and flexibilities?
Mr Kinghan: Yes.
Q124 Martin Horwood: A question on
corporate identity. In the memorandum that you sent us, at Q16,
you note that the cost of introducing the Department's revised
corporate identity, brand and brand values was £52,117: good
job, I have to say, as a former marketing consultant; that would
be a very good fee. I noticed on the front of the Annual Report
there is a logo with the strapline Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense,
which looks like quite a well-established one to me. Can you tell
us what the new corporate identity is?
Mr Unwin: I suspect that the answer
you are referring to is talking about our strapline "Creating
Sustainable Communities," which we developed as part of Excellence
in Delivery last year and, alongside the Department's symbol,
is on all our headed notepaper and all our signs, etc. That, I
suspect, is the question you have referred to rather than to a
new corporate identity that we will be launching in the future.
Q125 Martin Horwood: That would be
about £17,000 a word. You are not serious that just that
strapline is really what you are seeing from this project?
Mr Unwin: No, but changing all
our signs and notepaper, etc. I do not know. Perhaps you could
help me by saying where in the memorandum it is?
Q126 Martin Horwood: Question 16,
on page 48 of the memorandum you sent in response to our questions.
Mr Unwin: I think the best thing
will be if we offer you a further note on it.
Chair: That will be very helpful, so
long as it does not cost the same amount of money. Thank you very
much. I think it has been a very useful session. It has certainly
given us a lot of I was going to say ammunition but that might
be slightly unkind, it has certainly given us lots of thoughts
that we can take up and pursue with ministers. Thank you very
much.
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